After a 7 am breakfast with Tim, Mark, and John, they carefully loaded John's bike and departed for their 11-hour drive back to Wisconsin. I packed my trailer for a solo ride entirely along the Adventure Cycling Great Rivers Route to Bonne Terre via Farmington. Temperatures were in the low 50s, headwinds of 10 mph grew to 25 mph by mid-afternoon, and the Ozark hills were steep and constant. However, traffic was minimal, so 5 mph on hills was OK.
John left at the right time.
Ozark Mountain. Western residents often dismiss eastern mountains as hills, but the difference for cyclists is that eastern roads usually follow the terrain. Eastern grades tend to be shorter but significantly steeper, especially when not on major routes. I generally try to build downhill speed to shorten the length of the next hill.
Asking locals to recommend roads and routes is an interesting exercise in interpretation. From a driver's perspective, they often worry more about curves than hills. Today I was warned about hills and steep drop-offs, hardly an issue for a cyclist. Rough road surfaces, steep hills, and vehicle traffic are our major concerns. As for hills, few drivers notice hills unless they cannot see to pass.
Welcome ACA Bicentennial Route 76. Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) increasingly is placing signs on their routes. Route 76 is the route of the original 1976 bicentennial cross USA route, Bike Centennial subsequently rebranded as Adventure Cycling, based in Missoula, MT.
Farmington featured a number of historic large homes. The business district was a maze of one-way streets. The ACA route followed minor side streets out of Farmington, then paralleled I-67 on west-side frontage roads, avoiding most of the commercial business traffic on the east side roads.
I checked into my hotel early and plotted the route into St. Louis, approximately 60 miles each day.
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